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Currently Reading
After finally finishing Cold Days and Monster Hunters Legion, both fairly long books that I moved rather slowly on (due strictly to time constraints and not the fault of either book in any way), I am feeling like a couple of lighter, shorter reads are in order. In one of my recent anthologies, I read a short story by Thomas E. Sniegoski featuring Remy Chandler. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, especially the interaction between Remy and his black lab, Marlowe. It was funny and well written, so I checked it out and discovered the Remy Chandler books are a series. I’m already started on Book 1, A Kiss Before the Apocalypse, and so far, I’m enjoying it. After that, I think I’ll go spend some time in The Burg with Stephanie Plum’s newest adventure, Notorious Nineteen, just for some laughs. What are you reading? I’d love to know.
Bookin' It 
I’m currently reading Karen Marie Moning’s newest book, Iced. I thoroughly enjoy her books..the Highlander Series and the Fever Series. This book is really good. As soon as I’m done reading it I’ll try to do a review. The next book I’m hoping to get my hands on is the last Sookie Stackhouse book, which came out this week.
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Oh, here’s one where we will have to agree to disagree. I don’t have a problem with Moning’s writing style, but I sure did with the Fever series. If you love it, don’t look at my review of the last one I read (I think #5, though I wasn’t sure why I read that many). But hey…that’s why there’s chocolate, vanilla AND strawberry in the ice cream freezer, right? Something for everyone. I’ve never tried the Highlander series. Maybe I would like it better.
Thanks for responding. I like knowing what everyone is reading. I’ll check out Highlander #1 when I’m more caught up. As I say, with Fever, I liked her style, just not that story. I’m always open to giving a good writer another chance with a different tale.
Have a great evening! And thanks, as always for stopping by and commenting.
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BTW, I’m totally aware of what a successful series the Fever books have become, and I congratulate Moning on creating something that so many people have loved. I’m obviously in the minority on this one, but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily right. I mean, it’s not a right or wrong kind of thing. It’s purely subjective, and what works for me might not work for someone else. Also, I always love to hear from readers, whether they agree with my thoughts on a book or not. It often leads to good conversation, and a better understanding of what makes each of us unique.
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Hi Marcia, hope you’re doing well! 🙂
Myself, i have been reading Karina Halle series “Experiment in Terror”. I read the first, called “Darkhouse” and since i liked it, i decided to keep going. I liked the writing, and the plot, and the characters…well, Perry seemed interesting…and Dex seemed insane! So i was hooked!
I loved the second one “Red Fox”. The story was really good, and much more fright inducing. 🙂
Then i read the short-story “Benson 2.5”, which was okay, for a short story.
And then i had the “Brilliant”(not) idea of starting the “DEx Files”(5.7) that are told from the male character pov, and things didn’t work out as i thought they would, because i really had a problem with the guy’s “voice” and thoughts, so when i started the third, i was more than tired of the guy…
But most of my GR friends who have read it, loved it, so i probably wasn’t in the best of days to read it…
Now i’m trying to finish “A body in the bath house” by Lindsey Davis. This is the 13th volume of a favorite series, who features intrepid investigator Marcus Didius Falco and his numerous and complicated family…a vast array of sisters, worthless (in his own words) brothers in law, Anacrites (the royal spy, and a pain in the..behind), Vespasian, the imperador, who likes to give him complicated assignments but who doesn’t like to pay the bills…and his beloved Helena Justina and their two infant daughters…and there’s also the dog, Nux.
You know, i tried to read Thomas E. Sniegoski, but in my case i have to admit that i didn’t liked it. 😦
Here, “Fallen” and “Leviathan” (yup, its about Fallen angels) were published in a single book, with the name “Fallen”, and i honestly had to force myself to finish the first one. It felt a “little” incongruent. The writting felt very juvenile, but then it had some of the most gruesome descriptions that i’ve ever read…
And honestly talking dogs, (as exist in this one) don’t work for me…i guess i’m just too old for that kind of story.
Hope all is well with you, and congratulations on the new award! 🙂
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Wow, you have been busy reading, Susana! Boy, I’m longing for some good reading time. I’ve been swamped cleaning up the horrible tree mess along side of Mark for three weeks. Today, he got the last of the brush debris loaded up for pick up on Wednesday. (A total of 45 big containers full!!!) Now it’s down to him using the chainsaw on the huge logs left all over our side yard and stacking them with the rest of the logs. We now have what appears to be a full-sized FORT at the back of our side yard! We could hide from marauding hordes behind the walls of logs. Eeep.
I am not familiar with the first series you mention, but I will check it out. As for Remy Chandler, the dog is my favorite part. I guess I’ve never grown up…or at least I’ve never lost the child within. I think his voice sounds exactly like what a labrador would be saying if he could actually talk. Which of course, he isn’t actually doing. It’s just that Remy, as an angel, can hear the “voices” of all living creatures, if they have the capability of any sort of thought at all. And dogs do, of course, so while I’m sure they don’t use words, I can easily believe that if their thoughts could be put into human words, they might sound just like Marlowe. And as a dog owner, I know for a fact that they know exactly what many words mean. My first dachshund had an amazing ability in that regard, and would race to get or do whatever you were saying, even if it was buried in conversation with someone else. He would pick it out. For instance, I was once discussing a friend who had broken a bone in her foot, and the next thing I knew, Oscar was standing there looking at me with his toy bone in his mouth. He had picked the word out of an entire paragraph of words, and even though it wasn’t directed at him, he went and got his bone. (That’s just one case of many.) Anyway, of course it’s totally off the wall, but I can suspend belief for the sake of amusement, and the dog amuses me. I haven’t read far enough into the book to know whether I will like it overall or not.
I do get a feeling that there were earlier books, explaining why Remy chose to live as a human, but this is supposed to be the first one in the series, so I’m confused over that. Remy isn’t actually a fallen angel, himself, but rather one who made a choice to live as a human. He is welcome back to the Host any time he wants to go, where the Grigori (sp?) are definitely fallen angels who taught humans bad things, and they are doomed forever. I’m not usually into the fallen angel thing, though I’ve read one or two stories that were pretty good. But this book seemed intriguing. So far, while not brilliantly done, it’s fun, and short.
Thanks for the congratulations. I’ll be glad when I can get back to blogging daily again. Between Thanksgiving, the tree disaster, Christmas, and getting ready for my daughter to come in a few weeks, I’ve been buried around here. But I can’t complain, really. I have missed writing this past week, though, and want to get back to it very soon. Good to hear from you. I was wondering what you were up to.
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I completely understand the impulse to vary the tone of your books. My last few books have been fairly serious–The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce), Damned (Chuck Palahniuk), and The Cyberiad (Stanislaw Lem).
Right now I’m reading Disappearing Nightly (Laura Resnick) and I may just go re-read a Plum book for variety’s sake.
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Hi, Caitlin! Nice to see you here today, and thanks for taking the time to comment. Yeah, sometimes I read something really dramatic or deep or serious, and then I need a book with a lighter tone, or just a quicker read to “cleanse my palate.” After I finished Cold Days, I was just so immersed in that world, another BIG urban fantasy wouldn’t seem as real, so I was looking for something much less riveting. I’m halfway through the Remy Chandler book, and while it’s amusing, it isn’t anything I’m feeling really invested in. Yeah, I think that’s the thing…I need a break from the emotional investment.
And of course, since I can always use a laugh, no one is funnier than Stephanie Plum. Thanks for letting me know what you’ve been reading. Sounds interesting, though I’m not familiar with any of them. I’m going to check them out, for sure, to see which might appeal to me.
Have a great week!
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They’re not urban fantasy, but they might speak to you. The Cyberiad’s a collection of weird science fiction stories–about two adventuring inventor-mechanics.
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They didn’t sound like Urban Fantasy, but that’s fine. If you spend very much time around here, you’ll find I read a lot of other stuff, too. In fact, up until recent years, “other stuff” is pretty much all I was reading. I’m only glutting on Urban Fantasy right now because it’s so readily available, and a lot of it is very good, compared to the few things you used to be able to find. I’m reading it while I can. It won’t always be so popular. I enjoy so many genres, if they are well done, and make me care about the characters.
I intend to check ’em all out, along with anything else that gets recommended to me. The stuff that sounds interesting goes right on my To Be Read list on GoodReads, or on my amazon Wish List. Or both. I get to them eventually! (Damned sounds interesting, in a bizarre way.)
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